Manchester Creek Road Dispersed Camping

Just wanted to provide another perspective from a recent review.

We travel in our 34ft travel trailer. We found this to be a nice boondocking spot. The road in is nicely maintained. While I was definitely glad to be aware of ATV traffic from other reviews, I didn’t find it to be all that bad. It is a near silent place during the week with maybe a handful of other rigs in the area. It is definitely a busy ATV destination on the weekends but they are just driving past to a nearby off road trail. That said, we just went and did other activities on the weekend afternoons. I would advise to find a spot past the trailhead/atv staging area. The area does show signs of high traffic on the weekends as there is some litter in the area. Connectivity was good though will depend on how far in you drive. Video calls might have been difficult on AT&T but Verizon had speeds in the 50down, 3up range. Most sites are partially shaded though there were a couple spots with full sun for solar/starlink.

I was actually tryin to get to Rule Road 357 after reading all the great reviews but there was no way..... I have a 40 ft motorhome and was towing a Jeep Cherokee limited.

I was going slow so let some atv folks pass me by just before entering the dirt road into the forest. WELL... it was ok. The road is well groomed, I suppose you could say. Not too bad. It's only about 1 1/2 car lengths wide and my motorhome is HUGE so basically a one lane road for me. Got to a pretty big intersection within the forest but some guy in a blue car was too impatient to let me pull into the intersection/curve.... no, he just HAD to try to squeeze by me right where the road enters the intersection/curve. In order for him to not sideswipe me I turned my wheel to the right and inched forward to get out of his way... in that process, I guess, a tree caught the back cap of my RV and ripped it away from the side panel. It also bent the last compartment inward (where my basement air conditioner is) and damaged another compartment as well. All because this guy wanted to leave the area and couldn't give me 10 seconds to get out of his way. I had to file a claim with my insurance for this.

About the road itself, well...it's steeply banked on most of the curves as if for racing. The ATV's DO go pretty fast through there and, according to a sign I saw, they are only allowed on the roads, no off-roading so.... there is a battle for who can travel on Manchester Creek Road and they think they own it.

I was trying to find a place to turn around almost as soon as I got in there and couldn't find a place. Venturing deeper into the forest, I finally found a straight, flat area where I was able to unhook my car (Blue Ox requires straight and flat or it pinches and you can't release it to unhook and you can't back up with ANY jeep that I'm aware of.... they aren't mechanically able to do so without damaging the transmission - according to Jeep. I can tell you the wheels on the car DO lock up if you try to reverse the RV).

Once unhooked I backed the car up to a large area that I thought might be ok, parked it and ran back to get the motorhome (my cats are not helpful) then I proceeded further down the road to a spot where I thought I could turn around and did, then drove back to where my car was. It was about 2:30-3 pm on a Friday afternoon. All camping spots to this point were already occupied.

Managed to climb quite a bank to get into the lot and then spent over and hour and half constantly moving the RV around, repositioning, etc because I absolutely could not get it level anywhere. I finally decided I was done, parked it at a tilt, hooked up my car for an early morning escape and called it a night.

Trucks and cars and multiple trailered ATV's and campers blew through there like it was nothing. I can't imagine all the damage inside those camper trailers with the speed at which they flew up the road. There was all kinds of banging and clanging every time someone passed.

By sundown all I could hear were the neighbors maybe 500-700 feet away talking very loudly, laughing, yelling... till after I took my hearing aids out and went to bed around 11 or 11:30. My windows were closed because it was cold out and I had the heat on yet they sounded like they were right under my windows.

I woke up at 3:30 am and decided that I would have to leave before they all woke up and crowded the road so that's what I did. I NEVER go outside alone after dark, let alone off in the middle of the woods someplace, and yet I felt I had no choice. I left at 5 am - sunrise was at 5:36 am. Smooth sailing out (no traffic) but those banked curves, boy.... DO NOT try this with a motorhome.

I'm not exactly sure of where I was but I never turned off the main road (Manchester Creek). I know the spot I was in was on the left just before the road took a sharp left turn BUT my "neighbors" climbed a pretty steep hill straight ahead (instead of going left) and camped right there at the top of the hill. Their camper overlooked the road in front of my RV. I know I was back in there pretty far because it took some serious snake like banked curves to get out and it was a good 15 minutes before I hit the paved road again and I was going about 10-15 mph. It was about 10 minutes time wise. I do know that I eventually parked the RV between 4 trees (2 on each side) parallel to the road facing in the direction I had to leave. It was the flattest place I could find but was still too steep for leveling such a large vehicle.

I was too frazzled by the events of the day to pay attention to how many bars of Verizon service I had but I can tell you that I had no connection problems.

Y'all, please trust me when I say ONLY attempt this area on week days. I was there for several days during mid week and was planning on trying to stay Saturday night, but I woke up Saturday morning to about a million OHVs and started to quite literally get blocked in. It's the most insane thing I've ever seen.

During the week you'd see the occasion OHV, but it wasn't a nuisance or anything, but get the F out of here by Saturday or you'll risk getting trapped.

It's an incredibly beautiful area though, so highly recommend during the week, but not the weekend.

Campsites are fairly private, seems like this place is frequented by 4-wheelers, but it wasn't too bad and people were quiet after 9pm. Seemed family friendly.

Our campsite was pretty clean, with a tiny amount of garbage (a few snack wrappers) on the side of the road

The further back you go the fewer traffic there is on the road, but the more rough the road gets. I probably wouldn't take an RV back further than halfway down this road, and the very last campsite is up a very rough road - however if you get that campsite you'll have a beautiful mountain view

We have T-Mobile, and our data turned off for 20 seconds every 10 minutes or so, when we did have data, it was fast. If you're streaming music it should be fine with no hiccups, video would probably pause buffer

As I was driving through trying to find a spot most of them were taken at the beginning. It is an ATV riding park so towards the beginning it’s very noisy. We drove quite a bit into it until we started seeing Properties again and turned around and took the very first campsite headed back. You cannot see if somebody is camped up there so I had my son get out and walk up and double check. It absolutely Has to be the best campsite there is. It’s on top of a mountain and a gorgeous view of pikes Peak. I was carrying a small camper and I doubt you would be able to get up in there with anything else bigger than that FYI. I assume because it was the very last spot that’s why I did not hear very many ATVs while we stayed

Keep the faith and keep going 2+ miles after the ATV parking lot for tons of spots on FR 357/Rule Ridge Rd. You can see them well & easily from satellite. Only a handful free when I went on a Sunday night in June through rain and snow. Clear and cold up at my spot. I drive a 4x4 and had no issues, plenty of folks with trailers up there as well, but would need to take it real slow. Sheriff rolled by once. I loved this place, and even had some spotty cell reception.

Overall a great night and a great nights sleep. The campgrounds are semi-level easy to access and dispersed along the roads. The campers are mindful of each other and the ATVs and HOV‘s are mindful of the campers. It is busy. I counted roughly 20 ATV/OHV's plus other traffic in 2 hours on a Tuesday morning. I think I will go further back into the campgrounds next time. On the way out I noticed the large parking area at the entrance was completely full of toy haulers and related.

This is a five star dispersed camping ground minus a star or two for the traffic generated noise depending on one’s tolerance. One nice couple in SUV with the ATV in tow parked very close by and asked quite nicely if I minded. My response was that this was all of our space and I had no right to grant or withhold approval. I thanked them for asking, tho, and wished them well in the enjoyment their pass time - as I continued my quest for quiet solitude.

Came up here 6-7-2021. Stayed 2 nights, just a beautiful place. Really easy to get to, just a couple of miles out of Divide Colorado. Road is paved, til you get to the Forrest road. Then turns to dirt. Really easy, big rigs and small cars have no problem. Tons of ATVers, and dirt bikers. So noise is kind of loud. You are camping right off the road. Plenty of spots, both large and small. Loved how the temp dropped 20 to 30 degrees from the plains of Colorado Springs. Perfect weather, a little rain. Beautiful views. Any size rig will find a spot!